


All That's Best of Dark and Bright

by Anonymous



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Humor, Incest, Jason cries a lot and is kind of a dick, One-Sided Attraction, Sibling Incest, Twincest, i just have a dumb sense of humor, just a 4500 word angst parade through a fucked up teenage boy's head, okay fine it's not actually funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-20 00:12:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11909151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In which Jason Blossom confronts the attendant problems of falling in love with his twin sister.orJason tries to clear the flowers out of the attic (and fails miserably)..





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> don't crucify me for this please

When Jason and Cheryl Blossom were four years old, they got married.

Simply playing, as children will. An arch of roses and violets in Thornhill’s garden shadows their union while an invisible official pronounces them wed. The occasion is witnessed by an equally invisible audience of family and friends. Cheryl carries a bouquet she plucked herself. Only daisies and weeds, for their parents would be furious if they took any flowers of worth from the garden itself.

They each wear one of Penelope’s many rings, slated for return before she notices they’re missing. The jeweled bands are far too large for their little fingers. They must be continuously replaced as they begin to slip off.

Cheryl holds her brother’s hands and smiles and gives him a kiss on the cheek and tells him she loves him. And Jason decides his sister is the most wonderful, prettiest girl in the whole world.

He never changes his mind about that.

Not when he’s in the 1st grade and Archie Andrews asks him what girl he likes. He stares back at the other boy, who’s big for his age and a little scary because Jason hasn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet. He’s not sure exactly what he means. He likes Cheryl, of course. Who else?

So he says “I like my sister.”

Archie shakes his head.

“No, not like that. Which girl do you  _like like_. A girl you want to be boyfriend and girlfriend with.” He pauses, then, with stars in his eyes, says: “I like Betty.”

Jason shrugs. He looks across the room, where his sister is competing with said Betty Cooper over who can cut out the superior butterfly from a sheet of construction paper.

As far as he knows, a girlfriend is a girl you go to restaurants (he finds the prospect of going to a restaurant without his parents quite exciting) and the movies with. You hold hands and spend all of your time together and make each other happy. He can’t think of anyone besides Cheryl he’d want to do any of that with.

Cheryl, who has has proclaimed her butterfly the superior specimen, and is now engaged in gloating over poor Betty who looks to be on the verge of tears.

“I like Cheryl.”

Archie rolls his eyes now. He laughs a little.

"That's dumb, Jason. You can’t  _like_ your sister like that.”

Jason isn’t sure why. He’s a little hurt by Archie’s words, but decides that he’s probably just jealous. Betty’s pretty, but she’s not near as pretty as Cheryl. He’s lucky. His sister is the smartest, funniest, nicest, most beautiful girl ever. He’s sure of it. No one else could hold a candle to her, and ultimately it doesn’t matter what Archie Andrews or anyone else says.

He still doesn’t change his mind, even as he grows and slowly begins to realize that the whole world agrees with Archie. No, you really  _can’t_ like your sister like that. It’s wrong. Sick. Completely fucked. 

When he’s twelve years old, he receives a brief writing assignment. It’s an assignment that leaves a lot of room for creative freedom. ‘Just write me something more than a few words long’ his teacher says. That’s it. Poem or prose, meter, rhyme scheme, subject matter, are all left to the discretion of the author.  

Jason sits in Thornhill’s parlor with a blank paper in front of him and an eager pen in his hand. His mind is barren.

Cheryl comes into the room to watch TV. She slides onto the couch next to him and rests her head on his shoulder and the television clicks to life.

“Hey Jason” She says, her voice soft and wonderful. His heart does all sorts of unlikely acrobatics in his chest.

His pen dances across the paper. Jason doesn’t even realize he’s writing about her until he’s halfway done with the poem. She turns to him with great brown doe eyes and asks him what he’s working on.

“Some stupid poem for English.” He chokes out.

“Can I see?”

“I’ll show you when it’s done.” He offers, hoping desperately she’ll have long forgotten about it by then.

"Come on Lord Byron, let me see!” She prods him with her foot. He recoils from her touch, desperate to escape the disgustingly welcome sensation it brings.

“No.”

She swipes at him for the poem. He reels back and pulls it away just in time.

Cheryl sticks her tongue out at him and returns to the television. He closes his eyes, swears quietly, and gets back to work.

“I bet it sucks.”

She’s not wrong.

What he has when’s done is a cheesy, amateurish love poem to end all cheesy, amateurish love poems. The rhyme is juvenile and stilted. The meter is uncertain. It’s absolutely charged with confused, youthful infatuation.

It takes every ounce of concentration and willpower in his young body to stumble through the poem before his twenty-student strong English class. He reads, backed up by a chorus of snickering thanks to Reggie, Moose, and the rest of his friends. His face flushes bright red. He can only thank God Cheryl isn’t in the class, or else his lips, tongue, and mind would probably stop working when he gets to the horrible line about ‘hair like gentle flame’.

When he finishes and stumbles back to his desk, Jason feels as if he’s just walked a thousand miles. It’s like marching through a sea of maple syrup. His mind swims. He wants to faint. He collapses back into his seat.

Reggie turns to him with a massive, shit-eating grin on his face.

“Dude, that was the fucking gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Fuck you.” He spits back, drained.  

Reggie makes a grab for the poem. Jason snatches it away.

After class, Jughead Jones creeps up to him. That’s a bit odd to begin with, considering Jason and his friends are hardly on amicable terms with the grim-faced, would-be author. 

“It wasn’t a bad poem, man.” He says. “Ignore them.”

“Fuck off, Columbine.” He seethes. Because he’s angry and sad and wants to rip and tear something and Jughead’s right there. The boy doesn’t flinch. It’s not like he isn’t used to comments like that.

“Fine.” He spits back, storming off down the hall. “Dick.” Jason watches him go. Kids like him are supposed to be mean to kids like Jughead. Kids like him are supposed to be happy and popular while kids like Jughead are supposed to brood and suffer. Kids like Jason are supposed to win football games and date cheerleaders and they are not supposed to fall in love with their own sisters for fuck’s sake.

Of course, a kid like Jughead hardly cares why his tormentors torment, nor should he. The least Jason deserves is to be hated by the likes of Jughead Jones.

Reggie walks by and cries out in faux-anguish; “Jason, Jason, wherefore art thou, Jason?”

On the way to pre-Algebra, he crumples up the poem and tosses it into the nearest trashcan.

He never writes anything like that again.

Jason spends lunch in the bathroom crying. 

He stares into a mirror and into his own blue eyes, rimmed with red. God, he is so ridiculously fucked. Tears roll down his cheeks and pool at the swell of his lips. He tastes salt. Awful and bitter. He wants to gouge out his own eyes like Oedipus.

He can only imagine how Cheryl would react if she knew. She’d rightly think he was vile. She’d pull away. She’d never speak to him again. She would hate him and he would deserve it because he’s fucking scum.

He’ll keep his mouth good and shut if it kills him in the end. Because the only pain worse than this would be losing her entirely.

So he tries to forget about it. Tries to be normal. He really tries. Because he has to.

For a while, he’s dumb or desperate enough to think it’s fading. He’s becoming normal. His warped mind is straightening itself out. He was a silly kid, wasn’t he? It’s not totally unprecedented for a young child to have trouble separating romantic and platonic love. It’s simply part of maturation. He’s older and wiser now. Cheryl’s his sister, nothing more. He has to remember that.

Years pass and Jason hits his long awaited growth spurt. His baby fat melts away, his arms and body fill out with muscle, and he shoots up a foot in height. He soon finds himself swamped by female company. He makes the best of it.

The best sucks.

Cheryl grows up too, of course. Suddenly, Jason’s sister has  _curves_. And full, pouty lips. And long, slender legs. And a voice as liquid and sweet as maple syrup.

As the other guys on the team would put it in their boorish locker room talk; “dude, she’s fucking hot!” (Actually, they wouldn’t put it like that any more, ever since Jason almost broke Chuck Clayton’s face for making a lewd comment about Cheryl, but that’s beside the point).

When Jason’s fifteen years old he takes Tina Patel to the winter formal dance. He stands in his room before the mirror, adjusting the bow-tie and the cufflinks on his tuxedo. He had to figure it out himself, of course. Cliff Blossom couldn’t be bothered. Jason slicks his hair back. He knows a lot of the other guys are taking girls in the hopes they’ll get laid after the dance. Though he won’t admit it, of course, he’s rather ambivalent about that. If it happens it happens. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.

Jason smiles.

He looks fine.

Handsome, if he does say so himself.

All black from neck to toe. He’d just seen the new James Bond movieand decides he looks kinda like the titular character. Cool. He aims an imaginary gun at the mirror and fires. It's quite lame.

“Ready to go, 007?”

God he hates it when that weird twintuition shit happens and they independently converge upon the same idea.

He jumps at her voice, killing off Jason Bond as quickly as he conceived him.

Then turns to look at his sister and finds that the most beautiful girl in the world has made a return.

The first thing that pop’s into Jason’s mind is that stupid one-liner: “ _Somebody call heaven. There must be an angel missing.”_

Because framed in that pool of pale light spilling from the hallway, she looks positively divine. She’s like a sculpture. Impossibly perfect. All violent red and blinding white in her tailor-made evening gown. She’s so magnificent. Radiant. He wants to reach out and touch her flawless ivory skin. Wants to run his thumb over her plump, bee-stung lips. Wants to put his arms around her and pretend they’re the only two people in existence.

He forgets what Tina Patel even  _looks_ like.

Jason’s mouth dries up. His heart thunders in his chest. He suffers the familiar beating of butterflies’ wings in his gut. He doesn’t want to go to the dance anymore. He’s not sure he wants to go anywhere ever again. He wants to stay here with Cheryl and forget everything but those bewitching chocolate eyes and that brilliant red hair.

Fuck.

Archie’s voice echoes through his head. Not Archie as he is now, but the energetic, hyper six year old of all those years ago.

“ _You can’t_ like  _your sister like that!_ ”

Right. Of course not.

A powerful, icy finger of guilt probes at his heart.

Cheryl locks arms with him, and they head off to the dance.

They’re supposed to pick up each of their dates, get something to eat, and then go to the formal all four of them. Jason likes to drive with the top down, but it’s not easy to do while fighting the urge to gawk at Cheryl, impossibly gorgeous with her eyes closed in rapture and the wind whipping through her lovely red hair.

When they get to her house Tina flies down her front steps and almost leapfrogs into the passenger’s seat before she realizes it’s already occupied.

“Do you want me to move, JJ?” Cheryl asks. She wouldn’t budge an inch for Tina or anyone else at Riverdale high for that matter. But she’ll move for him. Because she adores him almost as much as he adores her.

He doesn’t want her to move. But Tina’s standing there. Both girls are staring at him. So he sighs.

And he says: “Yeah. Thanks, Cher.”

Cheryl slides into the backseat, and Tina takes her place. “Hi, Jason!” She gushes. She kisses him on the cheek and it burns, damp and hot and unwanted.

At the very least, he doesn’t have so much trouble navigating the next stretch, to pick up  _Cheryl_ ’s date.

Reggie fucking Mantle _._  The fact that he’s been Jason’s friend for years doesn’t make this any more tolerable. He swaggers down to the car with a half-grin on his face. Right now, Jason wants to knock his teeth down his throat.

Reggie jumps into the backseat, next to Cheryl.

“Hey, Cheryl.” He says, in what a sophomore might imagine is a seductive tone.

If anyone notices Jason gripping the wheel so tight the blood drains from his knuckles or him gunning the engine like a getaway driver, no one says anything.

The dance is, as most high school dances are, boring. No one really wants to go to those things. They just go because not to go is to exclude oneself from the school’s social life. Because everyone else is going. It’s what one might call an ‘emperor’s new clothes situation’.

Jason shares one unenthusiastic dance with Tina, before slipping away from the floor to sit in a dark corner with a cup of punch, wishing to God it was alcoholic. He watches Reggie and his sister for a while, chest burning with envy. High school kids’ idea of dancing is more uncoordinated convulsing than anything, but Cheryl actually looks like she’s having  _fun_. Jason wants to rip Reggie’s throat out.

Lost in such reverie, it's a while before he realizes he’s sharing his brooding corner.

Jughead Jones stirs in the darkness. Jason’s too gutted and miserable to be frightened by the sudden movement.

“You've already ruined my high school experience, do you really have to ruin my gloomy corner, too?” Jughead asks.

“I don't wanna fuck with you.” Jason responds.

“That’s a first.” Jughead responds. He feels a little bad. But feeling bad about the way he’s treated the Jones boy doesn’t make it any better. He's such a prick. Then Jughead says: “Shouldn’t you be out there basking in the the school’s adulation with all of the other popular kids?”

Jason shrugs.

“Probably.” He pauses.

“So then what’s with the self-imposed exile? It’s expected of me. I’m the resident creepy loner everyone thinks is going to shoot up the school. But you…” Jughead waits. Jason doesn’t respond. “Don’t tell me this is one of those, ‘I’m the man who has everything but is secretly a deep, tortured soul suffering in silence because of some tragedy that only I can comprehend’ things.”

“That is exactly what this is.” Jason responds. Jughead smiles. Jason can hardly see it through the darkness. It's probably karma. "Do me a favor."

"What?"

"If you ever actually go on a murder spree, kill me first."

They say nothing more to each other.

The dance ends and the attendees file out into a frozen December night. Jason opens his jacket and lets the wind rip through him. He doesn’t mind the numbness.

Tina’s steamed that he more or less ditched her for the duration of the dance. She doesn’t speak to him all the way back to her house. Fine. He doesn’t want to talk to her anyway.

As they cross Sweetwater River, Jason has the sudden inclination to turn the wheel hard and send them all to a watery grave. Needless to say, he doesn’t.

After they drop Reggie off (good fucking riddance) Cheryl asks if she can move back into the front seat. He doesn’t respond, tearing off down the street and towards the ponderous black mountain of Thornhill. Jason storms into the house without a word and locks himself away in his room, leaving his sister to wonder what she’s done wrong.

He gropes around in his drawer for the bottle of vodka he’s been saving. Fuck it. This is as special an occasion as any.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he downs most of the drink in the next hour.

Jason’s hardly conscious by the time a soft knock sounds at the door.

“Jason? JJ? Can I come in?”

He doesn’t respond, not in the least because he’s having trouble processing human speech. She comes in anyway. Cheryl stands in the doorway, looking sad and frazzled and contrite. And yet sill heartbreakingly lovely. He feels like a son of a bitch

“Cher…” He slurs.

She moves slowly toward him, as if afraid to frighten him with sudden movement. Sliding into the spot next to him on the comforter, she asks: “Jason, are you mad at me?”

No. God, no. How could be mad at her? How could he  _ever_ be mad at her? He’s mad at himself. He wishes he could sock himself in the fucking face until his skull caved in.

“No…no…s’fine…”

“If I did anyth-“

“You didn’t do anything!” He snaps, with more hostility than intended. She wraps her arms around him, ignoring the powerful stench of alcohol. “God…I love you, Cher. I fuck…fucksing…fucking love you.” He manages. Tears spring from his blue eyes.

“I love you too, JJ.” Cheryl responds. She sweeps aside a lock of sweaty ginger hair gives him a gentle kiss on the forehead. It alleviates the pain, physical and psychic, if only for a moment. 

“No…I love you…love you too much. Too…”

She laughs, uncomprehending. Her laugh is so beautiful. It cuts.

“What do you mean?”

“Just go.” He murmurs, his face red and wet.

“But…”

“Please…get…go!”

She breaks the embrace.

“Okay. Fine. I’m sorry.” Cheryl says, somewhere between hurt and angry. 

And she’s gone. He wants to cry out for her to come back. To please stay with him. To hug him and kiss him and love him even if she can never love him the way he loves her. Instead Jason buries his face in a pillow, so he can hide his tears from himself.

That’s what he does. He hides from himself. 

He hides from himself in lots of places. In darkened bedrooms with girls who don’t remember his name or face any better than he remembers theirs. In clouds of acrid smoke. In bottles. On fields.

Jason likes football. It’s primal. Animalistic. There’s little room for higher thinking of the kind he torments himself with. There’s himself and his allies. There’s the objective. Nothing else. It taps into those fundamental human mandates millennia in the making. Almost as fundamental as love and lust.

Of course, she’s always there on the sidelines, cheering him on. He so wishes she wouldn’t leap into his arms after each game and shower him with kisses that violate the spirit of platonic love if not the letter. But he’d die if she did stop. After the initial excitement is done, she puts her hands on his shoulders and tells him what a great job he did today. Like clockwork, he'll smile and tell her that he couldn't have done it without her support. It's probably true. Cheryl always beams when he says that, regardless. 

It's amazing, the change she undergoes when speaking to most anyone except him. The venom that she fires at her band of 'off brand Bratz dolls' as she called them once. Or the fury that animates her face when a social inferior dares speak to her. But she's never like that with him. She's always soft and gentle. And loving. It really isn't fair. 

So he goes and hides some more. 

Jason is still hiding from himself when he meets Polly Cooper at 17.

Okay, not really ‘meets’.

This is Riverdale, where you can’t swing a stick without hitting somebody’s third cousin. He’s known Polly Cooper since kindergarten, but as far as she’s concerned, they only have their RomCom-worthy, meet-cute moment when they’re 17.

She’s the safest option there is.

She’s pretty. Blonde. A cheerleader. Gets good grades. Smiles all of the time. Fucking Stepford robot. Just like him. Perfect. Exactly what everyone expects of him. So he corners her at her locker one day. Strikes up a conversation. He doesn’t even remember what about. Something dumb.

Within two weeks they’re an item and well on the way to becoming Riverdale High’s resident power couple. They go to all of the can’t-miss-it parties and she cheers him on at football games (and so is Cheryl but  _Jesus Christ he isn't supposed to look at her especially not during games_ ) and they sit together in a booth at Pop’s giggling and smiling about stupid shit that makes him want to slit his wrists more than usual.

As far as Jason is concerned, he’s not  _using_ her. Polly gets her fluffy, sickly-sweet, all-American teenage love fantasy. He gets to pretend, for his sake as much as everyone else’s, that he’s a normal, well-adjusted teenage boy and not fucking Cesare Borgia.

It’s a symbiotic relationship. Everybody wins.

When Jason is with Polly, he can forget, if only for the moment, about the perverse longing that has ruined what was supposed to be a perfect life. He can push it way down, and delude himself into thinking it isn’t even there. Just for a little bit.

Until he can’t.

Until he’s in bed with her one night, sweaty, hot, approaching climax. His head swims. He blinks, and for the briefest of moments her blonde hair is red and her blue eyes are brown and it isn’t Polly Cooper anymore, it’s his sister. And then Cheryl’s gone and Polly’s back. The loss and disgust are deeper and more powerful than ever before. He wants to gnash his teeth and cry out.  

Jason finishes, and Polly whispers “I love you” in his ear and he says nothing. It sounds like a curse. Like mockery. He hears the entire world laughing at him.

They lie together in silence. She lays a hand on his bare chest. He wants to slap it away. He doesn’t.

Moonlight stabs through the gossamer curtains. Like silver spears. Would that they could pierce his chest and end him now.

This isn’t who he wants to be. This isn’t who he wants to be with.

Polly turns to him, blue eyes shining with sympathy.

“Jason? What’s wrong?”

In the moment, he hates her. He hates her so much for not being what he wants. He hates himself even more for hating her. It isn’t her fault. It’s not her fault or Cheryl’s fault or Riverdale’s or even his son-of-a-bitch father’s fault. It’s no one else’s fault that he’s fundamentally broken. And he has no right to drag anyone else down into this mire of misery and lust and double-fucked love. But he’s going to do it anyway. Because he’s a Blossom and Blossoms are horrible, horrible people.

Everyone knows that, right?

Not for the first time, he considers killing himself.

_Here lies Jason Blossom. Star football player. Blew his brains out. Really, really wanted to fuck his sister._

What a legacy.

Polly snuggles up to him with a sigh of contentment.

He blinks back tears.

At least one of them is happy.

More importantly, at least  _Cheryl_ is happy and oblivious. He thinks so, at least. She must be in a fairly good mood to terrorize Riverdale High the way she does. But as his thing with Polly drags on far longer than he'd expected it to, he begins to suspect maybe Cheryl isn't that happy after all. 

"Jason, do you want go to the movies with me tonight?"

"I can't." He says, voice terse and even. "I have a date with Polly."

"You  _always_ have a date with  _Polly_." She shoots back, spitting out the name like she's glad to get it out of her mouth.

"Well I'm sorry, Cheryl, but she's my girlfriend!"

Cheryl twists her face into that vicious mask she's so good at. But he can see through it, just like she can see through him on everything except the one thing that really matters. She's hurt. Her nostrils flare a little. Her great brown eyes glitter. She looks so beautiful, even when furious.

"So? That doesn't mean you have to spend every waking moment with her!" 

"I don't, I  just..." His voice trails off because he really isn't sure what to say next.  _"I need her to keep up my paper-thin facade of normalcy!" "I need her to distract me from you!"_

"Just what? God, Jason, what is your problem lately? It's like you're avoiding me! What, all for that fucking blonde airhead?"

Well, what's he supposed to say to that? Part of him wants to shout "I'm doing it for you!" But that'd be a lie. He's doing it, like most things, for himself. To spare himself pain. 

"I..."

Even as he begins to lose the power of speech, she doesn't let up.

"Do you  _care_ about me anymore?"

The next words that come out don't come from any place of conscious thought.

"Of course I care about you!" He yells, much louder than intended. "What the fuck do you think this is about?"

She recoils a little. He wants to reach out and apologize. He doesn't of course. 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? You won't even talk to me anymore!" Her voice, like his, comes to the point of breaking. Tears well up in her eyes. God. She never cries. Except when she's really, truly injured. He's done it this time. "Just tell me what the fuck is wrong with you an-"

"I need to go." He snaps. And he turns around and flees. Runs. Runs away, again.

"Jason! Jason!" She calls after him. "Get back here you...you..."

No possible end to that sentence, he muses, could be insulting enough.

By the time he heads off to meet Polly at Pop's later that night, he's in one of his worst moods in a while. He and Cheryl had spent the rest of the afternoon moping in their respective rooms. Not that he’ll ever try to confirm it, but he’s pretty sure they both cried.

He does not want to go on a date with Polly Cooper right now. That’s the last damn thing he wants. But he does it anyway. Because he’s _fucking supposed to._

Much to his chagrin, her disposition is so wonderful she doesn’t even notice his poor humor. She smiles at him with her big, bright eyes and takes his hands in hers. She leans in to kiss him. This time, he actually does pull away a little bit. She either doesn’t notice or is way too happy about whatever-the-fuck she’s happy about.

Polly drags him to a booth. He follows like a zombie, half-dead. Sliding into the seat opposite her, Jason is struck by the sudden hunch that whatever’s got her tickled pink isn’t going to make his day much better. Jason’s face is pale and sallow and he’s clearly in less than prime condition but _she’s still smiling and giggling what the hell is her problem?_

“Oh, Jason!” She gushes.

He forces a weak, sickly smile. He thinks of Cheryl back home and feels ill.

“What’s up?”

She purses her lips. Leans in close. Squeezes his hands.

“We’re gonna have a baby!” She squeals.

What.

The world comes to a grinding halt. Jason’s wandering eyes drift to the silverware on the table and more specifically the knife. He could jam it into his throat right now. It wouldn’t be a quick death, but it would have to be a hell of a lot better than this. His fingers twitch. Polly’s smiling face becomes the rictus grin of some awful ghoul. The bright neon lights of Pop’s grow brighter and brighter until the light of a billion suns is exploding in his eyes. The blood howls in his veins. The world ripples and tears and spirals towards an incoherent screaming hell-void.

The last thought Jason has before the fragile foundations of his sanity crumble entirely is that rock bottom is a lot further down than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, 15 year old Jason probably should not be driving a car unsupervised to school. But he's a Blossom, who's gonna ticket him?
> 
> Anyway, there are a lot of things teenagers in Riverdale shouldn't be doing.


	2. and the wind did howl and the wind did blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more awkward pseudo-incestuous Blossom angst

 

_"Lie there, lie there, little Henry Lee, 'til the flesh drops from your bones_

_For the girl you have, in that merry green land, can wait_ forever  _for you to come home"_

* * *

 

When he breaks the news to Cheryl, when he explains everything and then asks for her help with this insane plan, he expects her to be furious. To scream and yell and maybe hit him. To ask him how he dares treat her like his personal servant? How thinks he has the right to pull away from her and ignore her and then demand she help him destroy their family?

What she does is far worse.

She says nothing at first. Cheryl sheds a few tears and Jason fights a titanic struggle with himself to keep from reaching out and wiping them from her lovely face. She sniffles. Her alabaster cheeks flush red and her big eyes fill with all the pain in the world.

“You…you’re leaving?” She asks, in a voice so meek and helpless that it’s almost impossible to believe it’s coming from the mouth of Cheryl Blossom, queen of Riverdale High. She looks at him like a wounded animal.

_Look at her. Look what you’ve done now you unbelievable prick._

Her face, dark with misery, begs for comfort. For assurance that it’s okay. That this isn’t really happening.

Jason clenches his fists at his sides. He can’t hold her. He’s established a ‘3-second rule’ for himself. He won’t allow himself to embrace Cheryl or even to touch her for more than three seconds. And if he hugs her now, he’ll never let go.

“I…I have to, Cher.” He mumbles, his voice pathetic and unsteady. Her face is burning red now, drenched in tears.

Seeing her in pain, in _any_ pain, hurts him. Seeing her so despondent is agony. But he needs to keep coolheaded. He needs to remain focused on the grand scheme of things. On the greater good. This is the best option for everyone. The best option for Polly. Perhaps he can talk some sense into her. Keep her from absolutely ruining both their lives. Perhaps being out of Riverdale will allow him to think more clearly. Perhaps… _Perhaps…_

Word of the day.

Most important of all, it’s the best option for Cheryl. He needs to be away from her, as painful as it is. She deserves a chance to live, to develop herself without her sick, fucked up brother along to hold her back. Jason owes her that, even if she hates him for it. He hopes she does hate him.

Every kiss Cheryl gives him. Every embrace. Every kind word and assurance that she adores him makes him sick. He doesn’t deserve any of it. He doesn’t deserve her love or affection and he never did. To be parted from her, from the person he loves more than anything in the world, is exactly what twisted garbage like him does deserve. He deserves that agony and much, much more. Jason wishes he could take away every ounce of her pain and lay it onto his own shoulders.

Cheryl wipes away the tears, desperate, as if she could still hide them.

“Okay.” She finally murmurs, her voice on the edge of cracking. “Okay.”

“What?”

“I’ll help.”

_No. God, no. Why are you so good to me?_

“Cheryl…” He doesn’t need to cry, too. No. No need to make this even worse for everyone. “Thank you.”

Even through the mask of tears, even when it’s clear as day he’s punched a hole through her heart, she _smiles_. And she says: “I’d do anything for you, Jason.”

Grief catches his throat.

* * *

 

She comes to him the night before the plan is to be executed. He rises, for he was not asleep, of course. How could he sleep? Jason shuffles to the door, simultaneously hoping to God that it isn’t her and just as feverishly wishing it to be.

But of course it is. Who else?

Cheryl stands in the darkness before him in her pajamas, barefoot and doleful-eyed.

“Jason…” She breathes. “I don’t want you to go.”

He hadn’t thought his heart could break any further. Before he can arrest himself, he’s holding Cheryl in his arms while she weeps against his chest. She buries her face in the thin cotton of his nightshirt, her tears plastering it to his skin. Jason places a hand on the small of her back, even as his conscience screams at him to _get your hands off of her right now you sick fucker._ God, she’s so warm and soft against him, and her hip is pressing into his thigh and a warm current of shame and something much worse prickles his flesh.

So much for the three-second rule.

“Cheryl…”

He tries to disentangle himself from the hug before it gets any worse. She’s not having it. She squeezes tighter.

“Why won’t you let me hug you anymore?”

Don’t ask that. Ask anything but that.

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is. You don’t like me to hug you anymore. You won’t talk to me anymore. You…you don’t even want to be in the same room anymore.” Her eyes are so large and shimmering with sorrow. Even though he really shouldn’t, he brings a hand up to her cheek and wipes away a few stray tears. The droplets cling to his thumb, wet and miserable. He cups her face, and she leans into his touch, because it’s been so long since he’s held her. Cheryl’s lips quiver as she fights not to dissolve into weeping again. “I just need to know if I’ve done something wrong. If…if I’m part of the reason you’re leaving.”

He’d always thought heartbreak was just an overblown metaphor. The sinking, tearing sensation in his chest says otherwise.

“No…Cheryl, God, no. You haven’t done _anything_ , _anything_ wrong.”

Jason feels her breathing, shallow and hitched, against his chest. She’s always been so strong, so firm. Right now, he feels like he’s broken her. He wants to…God, what does he want? He wants to hold Cheryl and make her feel better even it’s his fault she’s in pain. He wants to erase everything that led up to this, every fucked up thing he’s ever done and every fucked up thought he’s ever had. He wants to kiss her. He wants things he should never want from his sister. He wants all of this to just _end_ already.

“Then tell me. _Please_ tell me why you’ve been pulling away from me.”

To say ‘I’m not’ or ‘that isn’t true’ would just insult the both of them. He can’t lie about that. All he can lie about is the reason. But he doesn’t want to lie anymore. She’s here, hours past midnight, crying her eyes out and begging for an explanation for why he’s treating her like garbage. He’s fucked up so much. He’s hurt her so much. He’s hurt Polly, even if she doesn’t know it. If things go according to plan tomorrow, he’s going to hurt his parents and his friends. He’s hurt so many people. How can he be so cruel as to lie, now?

But he can’t tell the truth. It’s not a matter of wanting to. He simply can’t. He couldn’t force the words from his tongue. It would be an admittance of his depravity to himself as much as to the whole world. He isn’t sure he could stand to hear it loud.

“I…I can’t. Cher…you don’t understand.”

“That's the problem, you idiot! _Let_ me understand.” She puts her hands on his shoulder. Leans in close to him. Brings her face close enough that he can feel the heat of her breath, painfully pleasant, against his cheek and his neck.

_Is she…?_

_No, she’s not going to kiss you, you fucking head case. She’s good and not a sick waste of space like you._

Jason runs his thumb over her cheekbone, cursing himself all the while for indulging himself like the depraved bastard he is.

“I can’t. Not right now.”

She sighs. Bows her head, defeated. He wishes he could tell her. So that she could hate him and stop offering love and affection he’s so unworthy of. That’s why. Not because the darkest, most fucked up piece of him hopes there’s some shred of a chance she’d reciprocate. No. No, no, no.

“Well…can I stay here tonight? Please?”

What? Stay here? As in ‘his room’? As in ‘with him’? His throat dries up.

“Here?”

“In your room. Like when we were kids.”

“Cheryl, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Please? If you’re leaving tomorrow…”

_Say no. Say no. Have a goddamn modicum of self-control and decency and say no. Say it right now._

“Okay.”

_Fuck._

She smiles. Maybe it’s worth it because it’s so wonderful to see her lovely smile. Cheryl rises on the balls of her feet and plants a brief kiss on his cheek. It sets his goddamn head on fire and he almost stumbles backwards into his room. She takes his hand in hers. He almost yanks it away. He doesn’t.

_Boy, you’re breaking all of the rules tonight, you rebel._

He lies back down and Cheryl settles in next to him, conforming her body to his. She puts an arm around Jason’s waist and rests her head in the hollow of his neck. It’s amazing that something can be at once so supremely uncomfortable and so indescribably pleasant. To his shame, Jason is reminded of lying in the afterglow of pretended passion with Polly. Only this feels so much worse. Because it feels so much better. He’s so painfully confused.

Jason studies his sister’s face, and for the nth time is flustered by her beauty. How the hell is it possible that she’s so goddamn gorgeous? What kind of sick cosmic joke...

For a good long time, neither speaks, the only sound in the room their breathing in tandem.

Then she looks up at him with her baleful eyes and asks: “Jason, do you love me?”

_Just say yes. Don’t say anything dumb. Don’t say anything more than necessary. Just say ‘yes’._

“Cheryl, I love you more than anything.”

Goddammit.

“Then why are you leaving?”

He doesn’t have to hesitate for once. Because for once he’s telling the straight truth, even if it’s in a roundabout way.

“Because I love you.”

Cheryl doesn’t respond to that. Not in words. She’s far too tired. She leans her head against her brother’s chest and closes her eyes. She tries her hardest to drift off into sleep. She can’t keep herself from shedding a few more tears. Jason’s sure his shirt will be soaked through by morning. He doesn’t mind.

She finally falls unconscious a half hour later. Jason watches her sleep, hears her gentle breathing, feels her warm body pressed up against his, even smells the lingering scents of her thousand-dollar perfume. Touching her is almost unbearable, much less having her sleep nestled up against him like this. It serves to ignite those awful fantasies that have slowly but certainly crippled him mind and soul. Heighten his lust for someone he shouldn’t _ever_ lust after. An uncomfortable, hateful knot of ugly desire twists itself up in his gut. He tells himself tomorrow he’ll be free of it forever.

He isn’t sure he wants to be free of it.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight as his own tears begin to well up. There’s no way he can fix this. Jason has created a mess of truly magnificent proportions.

But she deserves to know. She deserves to know _why_ things have to be this way. He can’t be sure that it won’t simply hurt her even worse, but he’ll gamble on it. So, even as Cheryl sleeps fitfully by his side, he takes up a little notepad from his nightstand, a pen, and begins to write.

Her presence in fact, compels him towards honesty. With her quite literally in his arms he can’t lie to himself or to anyone else about his fucked-up feelings.

So he writes to her the truth that he was too cowardly to reveal face to face.

* * *

They awaken early, with the sun. She gets up first. In fact, the reason he's roused from sleep is because her warmth is gone and suddenly his room is so, so cold.

They don’t eat breakfast. They hardly speak to each other as they dress and make their final preparations.

Jason clutches his note in hand. He has to give it to her. He has to. He’ll tell her to read it after he’s gone. He waits for her in the foyer, his fingers trembling and the paper threatening to slip away. He hears Cheryl’s footsteps on the stairwell. His mouth dries up. He shoves the note into his front shirt pocket.

She descends the stairs, looking so tragically beautiful. Cheryl takes his hand, and he allows himself to enjoy the sensation as they walk out to the car together.

Riverdale passes by like a dream. Few people are up and about at this hour. A head here and there turns as the red convertible rolls smoothly by, cruising through the town’s heart and out towards the curling shape of Sweetwater River, that bounds Riverdale on the north-east like a great serpent.

“Are you scared, Jason?” She asks as they step out of the car. And he knows, because he knows her so well, that what she means is ‘I know you’re scared. And so am I.’

And so he shakes his head ‘no’, and he’s certain she’ll get the message: ‘yes’. God, yes. He’s terrified. Sick. Most of all, despondent. Is he ever going to see her again? Life isn’t worth living for him if the answer is no.

They step into the rowboat together, hand in hand. Jason can feel her sweat mingled with his through the thin material of their gloves.

_Give her the note, you idiot. Christ, you didn’t write it for nothing._

He can’t will his body to work. To reach into his pocket and hand it over to her. He _can’t_. He’ll send it when he’s far from here, he tells himself. When he doesn’t have to face her or himself anymore.

She’s out of tears, finally. Cheryl’s face is calm and filled with unimaginable pain. He’s not out of tears. Not just yet. Jason leans over the edge of the boat and lets a few of them fall from his eyes, and disappear into the churning waters of the river. Cheryl says nothing.

They reach the other bank of the river dry as bones, as Cheryl would later put it (not that Jason ever knew that). This time, he takes her hand. The twins stand together at the river’s lip for a time, in stone-silence, sharing what little strength they have between them, just like they always have.

This time, it’s him that leans down and gives her a kiss. It’s the first time in so long he’s permitted himself to do such a thing. But it really doesn’t matter now, does it? His lips meet her soft, alabaster skin. She whimpers a little. Why, he doesn’t know. A few tears of his own spring into being and catch onto her cheek or her red hair. For the briefest eternity, his lips brush the corner of her mouth. It is the closest, God be thanked and cursed, he’ll ever get to truly kissing her. A current of heat courses through his blood and neutralizes the early morning cold. He breaks the kiss, at last.

Jason starts up the hill, but he’s stopped after a pace or two because their hands are still laced together, and he isn’t sure which one of them is refusing to let go. He turns around to see her one more time. Cheryl’s mouth falls open, but she says nothing. He needs to go. Before he causes any more damage. So he pulls his hand from hers, even as she gives a little cry of protest. Her hand remains suspended in the air, fingers curled, clinging tight to the fiction of his presence. He gives her one last look, and then he turns and walks way.

It takes a superhuman will he didn’t know he had not to turn around. He can feel her behind him. But he keeps walking. Branches rear up and scratch at his face and hands. Fine. Let him bleed. The mud and dirt suck at his legs. He isn’t even sure where he’s going or why. He’s supposed to meet Polly, right. A sign somewhere. God. This isn’t Riverdale. This isn’t the shore of Sweetwater River. This isn’t earth. This is hell.

He’s thinking how lovely it might be to just die now, when some jackasses in leather jacket leap out of nowhere and start laying into him and the world gets just a little crazier.

Even if he’d had the mental or physical wherewithal to resist, he probably wouldn’t have.

* * *

 

 _Holy shit_.

FP Jones appraises the corpse of Jason Blossom. For the first time in a long time he’s entirely unsure of what to do.

This is bad. This is really, _really_ bad.

The town’s golden boy is lying dead in the basement of the Whyte Worm. No. Not dead. _Murdered_. Christ almighty, there’s a fucking _bullet hole_ between his eyes. Courtesy of his own father.

Shit.

FP had figured this was all some stupid rich-guy ploy to scare a little sense into his spoiled brat of a kid. They would pick up Jason, put on a movie gangsters act, maybe even rough him up a little if that was what old man Blossom wanted. Then Cliff would show, scream at his son, and take him home. Lesson learned. That would be that.

Not _this_.

This isn’t the first time FP’s seen a dead body, but this is also a lot different. He’s just a kid. He looks so young, with his smooth face and ridiculous all-white outfit and blood-splattered red hair and big blue eyes wide open.

God, he almost looks like Fred’s kid.

FP’s stomach turns.

He can hardly imagine what kind of man is capable of doing this so callously to his own flesh and blood. There’d been a gunshot and then Cliff Blossom had exited the room, adjusted his lapel, handed the gun to Mustang, and stalked off into the night. And it had been left to FP to go in and face the aftermath himself.

This is just…senseless. Pure fucking evil.

But he doesn’t have the luxury of sentimentality. Not right now. He’s been left with a hell of a mess, and all else aside, he’s got no choice but to clean it up to the best of his ability.

He calls up that kid, Joaquin DeSantos. Figures, correctly as it turns out, that he’ll do as he’s told and not ask a lot of questions.

When Joaquin shows up and catches sight of the body for himself, the color drains from his face. FP doubts Joaquin is a particularly religious boy, but he crosses himself nonetheless. Together, with little but FP’s clipped, one-word commands between them, they roll the mortal remains of Jason Blossom up into a plastic tarp, like a hunter with his kill. The overpowering stench of iron rises into FP’s nose. He tries not to gag. He hoists the corpse up, like so much garbage. Joaquin watches, almost hyperventilating. FP points to the floor of the basement, stained hideous red in great splotches and smears. “I’ll do the rest myself. You clean up down here. Not a _spot_ left, understand?” Joaquin licks his lips and nods.

FP tosses the body into a trunk and starts for the Sweetwater River. The cops have already looked there. If there’s any place the corpse will go undiscovered, it’s likely in the river.

He tries not to think of the boy’s mother. Does she know? He almost imagines Jughead suffering the same fate, but stops himself before the awful image can crystallize in his head. He could never so much as bring himself to picture looking his own son in the eyes and pulling a trigger on him. The thought makes him sick with fear and grief. What the hell kind of _creature_ is Clifford Blossom?

He tries not to think of Jason’s girlfriend. The one he was planning to run away with.

Tries not to think of his sister. The whole town knows how close they are.

Sweetwater twists and winds its way through the woods, the river glinting cheerily in the moonlight. FP shifts the car into first and creeps up the dirt road towards the old bridge spanning the water. There shouldn’t be anyone around at this time of night. He rolls to a stop at the foot of the bridge, on the southern riverbank. Steps out of the car. Stares down into the churning water beneath him. He swears.

FP takes a second to work up the courage to open the trunk and look at the goddamn body again.

He’s almost shaking as he pops the trunk and finds himself staring into those miserable, dead blue eyes. He reaches out and tries to force Jason’s eyelids closed. His fingers come away tinged with red. FP dry heaves. He doesn’t try again. As he hauls the corpse out of the trunk, he notices something sticking from the boy’s front shirt pocket. He retrieves what turns out to be a few papers, covered in a neat, appropriately florid hand.

A note.

Goodbye letter?

Love letter?

Either way, doesn't look like he'll ever get to send it.

With Jason Blossom’s dead body at his feet, FP begins to read.

_Cheryl, I’m writing this because you deserve an answer. You deserve to know why things had to be the way they did. If this does nothing but hurt you worse, please know that I’m sorry and that’s the last thing I ever wanted._

FP’s head swims as he reads on.

He shakes his head. This town is so stupid fucked up.

Even Jason Blossom, with his picture-perfect life, had his demons, it seems.

And what a hell of a demon it is.

He finishes the letter, his eyes squinting in the moonlight.

_You’re so beautiful, in every sense of the word. You deserve so much more than this family and this town and this existence. I've done nothing but make things worse for you and everyone else. Life without you isn’t life to me, but that’s the least I deserve._

_I’m sorry that I loved you more than I was ever supposed to._

_Yours, forever and always, Jason._

He sighs. In terms of the material, Jason had everything FP never did and a hell of a lot to spare. He still doesn’t envy the kid. Love is hard enough without... _that_.

It’s his hope the river will take the body and the town will never recover it. But it’s probably a vain hope. Even if it doesn’t turn up until miles downstream, or even in the ocean, it will. And the manhunt will begin. They’ll comb every inch of Riverdale and beyond, not to mention every inch of this corpse. The last thing Jason needs is for this letter to be found and spread far and wide. That’s the last thing Cheryl Blossom needs.

This kid has suffered enough indignities to last him seven lifetimes. He doesn’t deserve one more. Not one as great as this.

FP produces a lighter from his pocket. He flicks it to life. He touches the flame to the corner of the letter. Watches as the flames eat away at the boy’s anguished confession. Watches the papers curl and blacken and crumble, and the words burn away into nothing. Watches the note break down into a flurry of ash and dust. As the fire nears his fingers, he releases it, and lets the charred remains drift into the midnight air, the particles scattering across the forest and over the river and cross the face of the moon on high. Watches that sad reality vanish forever.

FP isn’t sure if he believes in God. If there’s someone or something up there, he doubts it’s much concerned with the little people down here on earth. He can probably count the number of times he’s tried praying since his last Sunday School lesson.

For the lives and health of his children when they were born. In the absolute depths of his failure when his wife and daughter are gone and his son can barely look at him. Other such moments of levity.

As he consigns the boy’s body to the hungry currents of Sweetwater River, he offers a brief, silent prayer for Jason Blossom’s soul. If there is such a thing. 

Somewhere a few miles away, in the lonely darkness of ancient manor house, a ginger-haired young girl, denied her other half, weeps silently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title and quote at the beginning are of course references to Nick Cave's great murder ballad, 'Henry Lee', which I listened to on repeat while writing this.


End file.
